


Stan's Diary, Hands Off!!

by beacandy



Series: Bea's Stanuary 2020 [2]
Category: Gravity Falls
Genre: Angst, Diary/Journal, Gen, Post-Canon, Secrets, Stanuary, Stanuary 2020
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-22 10:23:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,789
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22281382
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beacandy/pseuds/beacandy
Summary: Hey. This is my diary. Not all that manly to keep a diary, but y'know. The world is apparently a big and exciting place where gender roles can be messed with at will, so that's cool.Stanuary Week 2: Secrets
Series: Bea's Stanuary 2020 [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1596163
Comments: 6
Kudos: 65
Collections: Stanuary





	Stan's Diary, Hands Off!!

**Author's Note:**

> TZ LGFYLR ZV ULE OHT OOOFKAAZUT  
> FUV ZZTLD ZW'Z PIHUXY ESKGEJ  
> OASL JRNIOPL ILTUZ ZPM LQBAATLY?  
> ZR USF OE YLEI TJPY ALSF XVRVYFV?

Hey. This is my diary. Not all that manly to keep a diary, but y'know. The world is apparently a big and exciting place where gender roles can be messed with at will, so that's cool. If you're not Stanley Pines (old guy, five fingers per hand, super handsome, etcetera) then quit reading this. More specifically...

Ford: C'mon, nerd, don't read my diary. Remember when I picked up your journal because I assumed it would be like your old ones, full of info on monsters? Yeah, that went well. So don't.

Soos: This diary will not help you in your bizarre quest to be like me. I'm serious. This is where I put it all on the table, not a how-to guide.

Dipper: If you're reading this, I assume you feel like I'm keeping something secret. Maybe I am, but you'll probably be able to get it out of me by just talking. C'mon. Don't pull a Stanford on me and decide I can't be trusted. No, but seriously, didn't we already learn this lesson? You learned that I'm a good guy, I learned that you're more trouble than you're worth in serious mystery-solving-mode. If you're really worried about it, tell me you were desperate enough that you almost read my diary. That should get me to spill the beans.

Wendy: I can't imagine you would want to read my diary. For a couple of reasons.

Mabel: Go ahead, kiddo. I'm serious. I know you respect the sanctity of diaries more than anyone else I know, so if you're still reading this, you've probably got a good reason. Just... you remember the truth teeth thing, right? So if you read it and get mad at me for keeping things secret, gimme a break, okay? I'm a liar. It's part of what makes me lovable or something.

Someone Else: So, you're probably an enemy of mine. And if I let my diary get into your hands I deserve whatever's coming.

So that's it. Anyway, Ford, last warning. If you keep reading you're officially reading my diary. My personal thoughts, my innermost stuff. You don't wanna keep going, trust me.

Okay.

Sorry about that, Stan. That was pretty annoying. Anyway, you've probably figured out by now that this isn't a normal diary. If not by how weird that intro was, then by how I'm writing to you instead of, I dunno, describing my breakfast or something? What are diaries even for? Anyway, if you're reading your own diary from the start there's only one explanation. Memory issues.

Yeah, I know. But this is normal for you. It's not exactly ideal, but it's okay. And it's not permanent either. Yeah, should've led with that. All you need is some time going through your memories and it'll all come rushing back in a day or two.

And that's where this comes in. Sorry, Soos, I lied. This actually is a how-to guide. Basically, it's full of a bunch of info on who you are, who everyone else is, the stuff that's happened leading up to this, everything you need to be Stan. It'll both help you remember everything, and help you pretend you remember everything until you actually do.

As great as you already can sense you are at pretending, you're probably wondering why I'm do-it-yourself-ing this instead of just telling you to talk to one of those many great people you've just read about indirectly. Here's the thing. ~~You know Ford? ...No, you don't, dumb question. I really should have planned what to write befo~~ ~~~~

Your memory loss was sort of caused by Ford, the guy I called nerd earlier. It's not his fault or anything, not that he listens when I tell him that.

Actually, before I explain everything, check where you are and check the clock. If you're in a bottom bunk in a room that's rocking back and forth, you're on the boat with Ford. If you're in a small bed with a busted spring by your foot, you're staying at the shack for the summer, and Soos, Dipper, Mabel, and Ford are there too.

Now, if you're on the boat, you usually get up at seven. I know, that sounds inhumane, but you're on a boat, you've gotta be up early to get some fishing in and take in the morning breeze and other cliche junk like that. You can get away with half past before Ford starts to think something's up. If you're in the shack you get up at around nine. Much more leeway there, especially since you don't have to work anymore, but if you stay in bed too late the kids might try to make breakfast, and you do not want to experience Mabel's take on breakfast.

Anyway, if you've got less than five minutes, flip to page 34 for the basics. They should be enough to fake it well enough to fool people for a few hours. Use that wall calendar you keep in your pocket at all times to figure out what day it is. And no, you don't keep a wall calendar in your pocket because you have memory issues. ...You can check this out again and read from the start when you get some time to yourself. You'll probably feel totally lost, but just roll with it. Even memory-deprived, you're pretty good at talking your way out of suspicion. Actually, you're kind of better, since you don't get guilty about lying to your family like I do. Maybe you should be the one writing me tips?

Anyway, if you've got more time than that, I can tell you what happened. So basically you agreed to erase your memory to get rid of this weird little demon guy who was threatening your family. Oh, and, I guess he wanted to take over the world or something. It was pretty traumatic for everyone involved, especially Ford, because he was the one who shot you with the memory gun. Oh yeah, that's a thing. Demons are a thing too. But then they all figured out that they just had to talk you through your memories for a while to get you to remember stuff. You were back to normal within a week.

...Or so everyone thought. A few months later you woke up with no memories. You were on the boat with Ford, and when he figured out what was happening he explained it to you and pulled out a scrapbook he made just in case. It took a bit longer than the first time for you to start remembering stuff, which kinda freaked him out, but it all came back to you late in the evening. You and him were both relieved and of course Ford turned the boat upside-down and ran a couple dozen tests on you looking for what caused the relapse. He made a couple of ~~hipo~~ ~~hypo~~ guesses and I guess tried all of them. Changed the lights, redecorated the room, switched the boat's course (without asking you, obviously), banned you from eating midnight snacks, that kind of thing.

It didn't work. You woke up with no memories a few weeks after that and had to do it all over again. He started up some more intense tests and the two of you started doing video chats with the kids (Dipper and Mabel) asking them for ideas. They had a lot of smart ones, but nothing seemed to actually do any good. You kinda just decided it was okay. I mean, you're almost sixty, random body pains and joints that stop working are sort of a fact of life. And, not to be morbid, but, when people my age start having these kinds of memory issues it's not always the kind of thing that can be solved with a scrapbook and a bit of jogging. You told Ford as much, and he said he saw your point and he would chill out a bit, but he wouldn't stop looking for the trigger and trying to prevent it. Which, fair enough. He wouldn't be Ford if he didn't feel a compulsion to solve every mystery he came across. So you thought that was settled.

You woke up in the middle of the night and Ford wasn't in bed. You went to the kitchen as quiet as possible and he was there video-chatting with the kids. Tears streaming down his face, going on and on about 'What have I done?' and "How can he stand to be with the monster that did this to him?" and "". Ovrdramatic Ford monologues taken to the extreme. Based on how the kids were acting, it definitely wasn't the first time.

(Not that this is the main takeaway here, but apparently Ford hasn't learned his lesson about offloading his emotional issues on the kids, so that's great.)

So that's when you came up with the idea to do this. I mean, you've pulled off more complicated cons for way lower stakes. Nobody else has to know you're still having memory issues.

...Don't look at me like that, book. There is absolutely no problem with this!. ~~Sure, part of the reason I'm mad at Ford is because he didn't talk to me, and this is me not talking to him. Sure, the reason we had our fallout was because we didn't actually talk through our plans for after high school. Sure, when the Duchess decided to stop communicating with her mom, I threw my pillow at the TV screen because of how frustrated it made me.~~ I see no issues with what I'm doing here.

If you can't make yourself remember without help, come clean to Ford, burn this book, and call this idea one in a long line of Stanley Pines's Screwups.

Anyway, next page I start going in depth about the people I've been talking about, so strap in. You've gotten to know some real characters.

* * *

P.S. - It's been like half a year since I wrote this and it's been working just fine. After you went about four months "without incident" Ford thought maybe it was about where you were. Something about magnets? It's all nonsense to me, and I think he's sworn off a big chunk of the Arctic over it. Hope that's not the part with Atlantis or something. Anyway, he's a lot happier too. Doesn't suspect a thing, so you've been crushing it, huh? Well keep it up.

Oh, and, uh, just so you know what's coming, turns out one or two days to get your memories back was a low estimate. That was how long it took at first, but these days it takes more like a week for you to remember.

...I'm sure it's nothing to worry about.

**Author's Note:**

> There's never any one thing that brings him back, but it seems like the KEY to helping him get started is looking at the pages that talk about his childhood. Starting with the place.
> 
> (This one's an experiment. Not sure how it turned out, but, hey. If there's a time to be experimental, it's during this kind of short-term challenge, right?)


End file.
